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[Footnote 22: The earlier ayas, Latin aes, means bronze not iron, as Zimmer has shown, loc. cit. p. 51. Pischel, Vedische Studien, I, shows that elephants are mentioned more often than was supposed (but rarely in family-books).]
[Footnote 23: Weber, Indische Studien, I. p. 228; Oldenberg, Buddha, pp. 399 ff., 410.]
[Footnote 24: Very lately (1893) Franke has sought to show that the P[=a]li dialect of India is in part referable to the western districts (Kandahar), and has made out an interesting case for his novel theory (ZDMG. xlvii. p. 595).]
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CHAPTER III. THE RIG VEDA. THE UPPER GODS.
The hymns of the Rig Veda may be divided into three classes, those in which are especially lauded the older divinities, those in which appear as most prominent the sacrificial gods, and those in which a long-weakened polytheism is giving place to the light of a clearer pantheism. In each category there are hymns of different age and quality, for neither did the more ancient with the growth of new divinities cease to be revered, nor did pantheism inhibit the formal acknowledgment of the primitive pantheon. The cult once established persisted, and even when, at a later time, all the gods had been reduced to nominal fractions of the All-god, their ritualistic individuality still was preserved. The chief reason for this lies in the nature of these gods and in the attitude of the worshipper. No matter how much the cult of later gods might prevail, the other gods, who represented the daily phenomena of nature, were still visible, awe-inspiring, divine. The firmest pantheist questioned not the advisability of propitiating the sun-god, however much he might regard this god as but a part of one that was greater. Belief in India was never so philosophical that the believer did not dread the lightning, and seek to avert it by praying to the special god that wielded it. But active veneration in later